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Pine Management trying to evict 94-year-old UWS tenant
Maxwell Levy has lived in the rent-regulated apartment at West 80th Street since the 1950s
Pine Management is trying to evict a 94-year-old tenant who has lived in one of its rent-regulated apartments on the Upper West Side for 50 years.
The real estate company sent Maxwell Levy an eviction notice in August, the New York Daily News reported. The owners of the company, Thomas Rohlman and his sons Daniel and Jason, have accused Levy of being a hoarder and have been trying to throw him out of 211 West 80th Street since 2014. The company is under investigation by the state attorney general over repeated complaints they are trying to force out rent-regulated tenants, according to the paper. Subpoenas were issued Tuesday, the Daily News reported.
Levy’s case will go before the housing court on Wednesday.
Levy, a World War II vet who pays $1,650 a month for the six-room apartment, said he is being targeted by the company because he does not pay market rent.
“They want to get my apartment because they can make a lot more money,” he told the Daily News. “Once I move out, they’ll cut my apartment into two apartments and then they’ll get twice the amount of rent they get because I’m under rent control.”
Pine Management owns and manages 38 properties in Manhattan and Brooklyn, according to its website. In June, a superintendent at its building at 510 Amsterdam Avenue, sued the company, saying he was fired because he refused to rummage through the belongings of rent-regulated tenants as part of campaign to evict them.
Earlier this week, a co-owner of 510 Amsterdam Avenue, SM&S Associates, filed a lawsuit against Sydell Pine, her son-in-law Thomas Rohlman and Pine Management, saying they’ve schemed to prevent a sale of the 23-unit building. But Pine actually died in January 2014, and lawyers for SM&S Associates could not be reached to explain why she was named in the suit. [NYDN] — Miriam Hall